Quite Honestly

 













Quite Honestly by John Mortimer is my Q book for A-Z challenge and is my book for humor at the Eclectic reader challenge..

The back of the book describes it as" A comic novel of middle-class do-gooding gone quite awry.  Lucy Purefoy is a college graduate who joins SCRAP - Social Carers, Reformers and Praeceptons which is an organization to help ex-convicts coming out of prison.  Lucy meets a burglar named Terry Keegan. She become fascinated by him and falls in love.  They move in together.  Lucy things they will become closer if she steals things.  She begins taking small things but then decides to steal a painting belonging to a friend.  She is caught and sent to prison.  At the end of the book, Terry is now the member of SCRAP and he is at the prison to meet her.

This book is told from both points of view.  We get Lucy telling her story and Terry telling his.  I can understand why she wants to have the excitement of burglary even though it is misguided.  Lucy compares prison with the boarding school she was sent to as a child.

I like the endings which mirrors the beginning of the book where the two of them tell of their first meeting.  It is interesting to read the descriptions of the other characters and of the surroundings.  Mortimer does show a sense of humor especially having the head of the burglary ring become the head of SCRAP.  Lucy may be a bad burglar but she does not give up the ones who helped her which is honorable.